Quailman and the Shadow of Wheezin' Ed
by Xtreme Therapy
Summary: Dear Journal. It's me, Doug. I can't say I ever believed in urban legends. Until now.


"You're blaming me!? I didn't even want to go to this stupid hippy music festival!"

"Stupid!? You damned philistine! It's the biggest musical arts festival on the West Coast!"

"And it's probably full of drug users!"

"Artists, Doug! _Artists!_"

"Yeah? Well maybe YOU were on drugs when you came up with this crazy idea!"

"Oh my God, you are SO square."

"Oh okay Judy, so everyone that's NOT square in your world is someone who has done drugs and A: wrote some awful story, B: painted some terrible portrait or C: made some lousy beatnik record?"

"Can it! Just can it! Shut it, twerp! Just freaking shut it!"

"Okay. Okay Judy. You're right. Maybe _I_ was on drugs when I talked mom and dad into—_**STOP!**_"

Judy brought to a screeching halt. There out past the windshield stood a short blonde kid with a football head and propeller beanie. He was an inch away from the bumper, and it looked like he was chewing gum.

"_That didn't make him swallow it?_" Doug asked in the back of his head.

Doug, Judy and Porkchop immediately got out of their rental car and onto the country road. The asphalt was potholed and worn; the center lines sun faded. Fields of golden wheat lined both sides of the road were bound off by barbed wire and spanned on for acres, blowing in the humid summer wind.

"My goodness!" Judy's hands were at her face, overcome with humiliation. "I am _so_ very sorry. I didn't see you, my little brother was trying to get us into an accident."

Doug glared at Judy, but then turned his attention to the kid. Up close he looked about two years younger than him. "Hey… Are you alright?" Doug asked.

The kid snorted. "Yeah. I'm fine. Another three seconds and I'd have a cracked skull. Maybe some broken limbs. Internal bleeding too." He blinked one eye and then the other. "It's good you stopped. Or maybe I'd just be dead."

He blew a gum bubble, popped it, licked it off his lips and went back to chewing it mundanely.

Judy and Doug sort of just stared at the kid, at a loss for words.

Porkchop barked, and tugged at Doug's shorts with his paw.

"What is it boy?" Doug looked over his shoulder. "I—"

"Hiii…" A soft voice said in a warm drawl,

A pretty brunette with soft tan skin and freckles leaned up with one hand against the side of the telephone pole next to the road, her other hand resting on her hip. She wore tall white boots and a flowing green summer dress. She winked her eyes at Doug.

"Uh—um, hi?" Doug said, gulping.

She bounded off the pole and strode up towards him.

Doug felt his legs quavering as he watched her walk. He tilted his head, daydreaming. _"Gosh, she's…" _He shook it out of his head._ "No way. Too young. She's got to be two grades under me at least… And what about Patti?! I have __**standards**__! No way man. No way."_

"I'm ever so sure I can't say we get a lot of visitors around here." The girl said, walking up to Doug and looking up at him dreamily. "And I'm certain by the looks of you that you _must_ have come from some place far more unique and revived than our dusty old county..."

Porkchop made as if to vomit.

"Well uh, maybe." Doug muttered. He glanced at Judy, who seemed to be in a staring match with Arnie.

"_Welp that's not good. He's so understated it's probably ticking her off. I'll have to step in…"_

He turned his attention back to the girl. She was tapping her foot; Doug could tell she was getting impatient.

"But uh, anyway." He forced himself to say. "Hi. I'm Funnie." He said.

The girl smirked, curiously. "You certainly are…"

"Doug Funnie, I mean…" He added awkwardly.

"Hm. You must be dazed from that dreadful sudden stop. If you want, I can take you over to my favorite tree while my boyfriend and your sister sort this oh-so ugly business out."

"Your favorite tree?" Doug asked.

"That's right." She purred. "It's the only place I ever go when I want comfort..."

"_Am I getting solicited or something?" _Doug wondered as he stared wide-eyed at the girl. "D-Do you have a mom or someone I could talk to?" He blurted out.

She glared sideways. "Talk to Arnie…" She sighed, returning to lean against the telephone pole, watching still watching Doug sultrily.

"Uh, alright." Doug wiped his forehead, with his arm, from relief than from the balmy weather. He turned back to Arnie, who turned to him. "Uh, Arnie?"

"What?" He asked.

"Are you Arnie?" Doug checked, just to make sure.

"Yeah that's me." He said, blinking one eye and the other.

"Hi, I'm Doug." He said, raising his hand in a friendly half wave.

"Yeah, I heard." Arnie responded with a snort.

"We're a little lost." He said, walking up to Arnie. Porkchop and Judy both walked up next to Doug and stood beside him. "Do you have a phone we could use?"

"Inside the house." Arnie said, point his thumb over his shoulder to a beat-up and worn down country home poking out ominously above the wheat just off the road. "Let's go."

As the four walked off the road and onto a broad dirt driveway, Doug and Judy both stared up at the house.

"How… Rural, and quaint." Judy said falteringly to Arnie, and then whispered in Doug's ear. "It's a dilapidated wreck. Like something out of an American Chernobyl."

"Cool it, Judy…" Doug whispered back.

"That's my pet pig Abagail." Arnie gestured to a grotesquely fat pig sleeping in a pile of hay. "And that's my lucky pile of dirt." Arnie said, gesturing towards a large mound of dirt. "And that's my favorite hoe."

Doug, Porkchop and Judy all mistakenly looked at Lulu.

Lulu glared. She pointed with Arnie over to where a hoe was leaning the outside of Arnie's run-down porch.

With Arnie in the lead, everyone went straight up the creaky wooden stairs and into the home. Through a hard wooden door and a punched-out screen door, they came into the foyer. Doug looked down. A long-worn welcome mat seemed to be sinking into the floor, brown and coated with dirt.

The inside of Arnie's house was dark, and close. Nails stuck up from the plywood floors. Rat droppings dotted the floor moldings in neat lines along the walls. Most of the furniture was covered in tarp. The windows were murky, and smeared.

"_Oookaay… So maybe it's a little creepy, so what?" _Doug thought._ "Maybe Arnie just leads an eccentric lifestyle…"_

"The kitchen's in here." Arnie said, taking a left with Lulu, who brushed up against Doug with her hip on the way past him. She turned over her shoulder and giggled.

Doug cringed and blushed at the same time. Judy noticed Doug, and frowned. Porkchop noticed Judy's expression, and then shook his head worriedly.

They met Arnie and Lulu in the kitchen. The sink was full of scummy, unwashed dishes. The cabinets hung open, their contents half spilled out. Nets of cobwebs threaded the blades of the ceiling fan hanging above the table, long since out of use, its wiring partly exposed.

Judy sat down very slowly on a creaky wooden chair and leant back. A pair of flies found her, and she began to swat at them angrily. Porkchop curled up at the table leg. Arnie watched Doug idly, chewing his gum emotionlessly. Lulu seemed to be having fun watching Doug.

The old country phone, dust-coated and oaken was located on the wall by the back porch door and a cupboard. It looked to be an antique, like something out of an old black-and-white movie. Doug picked up the handset off the hook and turned the rotary dial.

By the time he had dialed Aunt Opal's number, he heard nothing on the receiver. He dialed again, this time trying his house phone. Still, nothing. He hung up.

"I don't think it works." Doug said, turning to Arnie.

"Yeah. I meant to tell you. A crew's supposed to show up later to fix it. I asked."

"And when are they supposed to be showing up?" Judy asked Arnie, leaning back in her chair.

"Thirteen minutes. Maybe fourteen. Their shop is six miles, three-hundred-and-eight yards, nine feet, twenty inches and ten and-a-half centimeters away."

"Wow. That's uh…" Doug rubbed his chin, looking for the right words. "Precise."

"I know." Arnie said, rummaging through the fridge. "I measured."

Doug sat down at the table next to Judy, but not before taking a quick glance over Arnie's shoulder as he was going through the fridge. There was what looked like a still, furry animal wrapped in a plastic grocery bag on the lower shelf. Doug shook the image out of his head.

"Our Aunt Opal's still about a day's away from here, so we're looking for a good place to stay until she can find us." Doug said aloud to Arnie. "You know any cheap motels around here?"

"Not really." Arnie said, still rummaging through the fridge. "But my cousin Arnold does. Try Sunset Arms. In downtown Hillwood. Under the overpass west of Quigley Stadium. It's a boarding house but they'll take you. A normal bus ride there takes thirty minutes. Eight seconds. Four—"

Lulu put her hands down on the other side of the table and leant over it nimbly. She made fast eye contact with Judy, but then instantly looked to Doug, and settled her eyes on him again dreamily.

"You must be sick of hearing Arnie's oh-so dull approximations. So where ever is it that you both come from?" Lulu asked, talking more to Doug than Judy. "Is it someplace far, far away from here?"

"Well," Doug began, trying to hide the nervousness in his voice, "My family moved to Bluffington about a year ago. We've been living there ever since."

"Bluffington Virginia?" Lulu beamed. "I'm everso certain that's the Bumper Sticker Capital of World!"

"Haha, you're right about that…" Doug trailed, looking away as Arnie stepped in.

"Hey." He asked Doug, blowing another gum bubble before popping it, and licking it off his lips.

Doug flinched as some of the spittle hit his face.

"You wanna see my lint collection?" Arnie asked him.

"You have a lint collection?" Doug blinked.

"Yeah." Arnie blinked one eye, and then the next. "I've gathered lint from every room in the house. Also from my friends."

"You have friends?" Judy asked.

Doug glared at Judy and nudged her with his arm. Lulu giggled at Arnie's expense. Arnie just snorted.

"Uh, yeah, sure. Come on Porkchop." Doug said, getting up. Porkchop gave a relieved bark and got up from the floor. "Judy, why don't you talk with Lulu?"

"Certainly, Douggie, I've got just so much to say…" She hissed.

Doug and Porkchop both cringed as he walked out of the room with Arnie. Lulu watched Doug leave, looking sad and worried.

Doug and Arnie went up a creaky flight of stairs. The faded white paint on the old wooden railway was chipping away, and the wood was splintering. The round tips of the newel posts had been snapped off. On the eighth step, a rat scurried past Doug's foot.

Doug stumbled and then got back up, finally catching back up to Arnie at the top of the stairs. In through a small, cramped and dark hallway, the two found Arnie's room. Here the murky light of day filtered in only through a broken window, the only source of light in the room.

An old tattered mattress without pillows, sheets or blankets laid flat on the floor. On its left was an old plastic hamper full of dirty overalls, shirts and underpants. On the right, piling up towards the window, was a gargantuan pile of lint.

"Wow…" Doug pointed at the lint, faking niceness. "Check it out Porkchop! That's the most lint I've ever seen! Or uh, at least, in one place…"

Arnie immediately began to systematically pick and sort out individual clumps from the mass.

"This lint's from Sunset Arms. Mr. Hyunh gave it to me. He was mad. Lila gave me that one. It's from under her fridge. That lint comes from the laundromat. That lint I found in someone's car in an old garage."

"They… didn't mind you searching their car for lint?" Doug asked.

"The driver asphyxiated himself." Arnie said, putting it back. "He'd been dead for three days. I checked for decomposers. So no. He didn't mind."

Porkchop jumped and looked like he was about to faint.

Doug stared at Arnie, wide-eyed. _"Welp I guess it's about time to wrap this all up and go. Now . Right now."_

Arnie waited for Doug to speak, blinking one eye and then the next.

Doug shook his head but couldn't hide his urge to leave in his voice. "Uh… That's really something, Arnie."

Arnie snorted derisively. "Don't know if I like your tone."

"Whuh—" Doug asked, nervous. "Waddya mean?"

"I don't think you get how much work went into this collection." Arnie said, his voice going low. "I find it disrespectful. Especially to someone you almost ran over."

"Douggie?" Judy's voice echoed pleasantly up from downstairs.

"Uh, excuse me a second." Doug said quickly, before taking off in a whirl with Porkchop behind him.

"Hey." Arnie called after him, following him slowly. "I'm not done with you yet."

Doug was down the stairs and back in the kitchen with Porkchop in seconds. Lulu was crying into her hands. Judy was still sitting at the table.

"What's the matter?" Doug asked.

"I'm ready to continue our journey! Let's get back on the road!" Judy said pleasantly, standing back up.

"What?" Doug asked before Lulu flew at him and hugged him tight. She sobbed uncontrollably.

"Oh Doug, your big sister is everso cruel and heartless! How can you _ever_ bear to put up with someone so insufferable?"

"Well hey; nobody gets to choose their big sisters..." Doug smiled awkwardly at Judy, who put her hands on her hips and glared back.

Arnie entered the room. Lulu immediately stepped back from Doug.

Doug gulped. "Uh, Arnie, I can explain—"

"I realized why you and Judy nearly killed me with a rental car, Doug." Arnie said, his voice low. "It's so you could steal my girl. And feed Porkchop my lint collection."

Doug and Porkchop exchanged glances. "… What?" Doug asked, half confused, half scared.

"And now? Now you're gonna pay for it." Arnie growled, bared his crooked teeth and curled his fingers out for eye-gouging. Arnie then lunged at Arnold, frothing at the mouth.

Doug restrained Arnie by using his hand to hold down Arnie by the head. Porkchop helped by bracing Arnie's legs, whose arms flailed around wildly. Judy darted up alongside Arnie, twisted, and whacked him upside the head with a hardcover copy of _The Complete Works of Shakespeare_.

"Good God _DAMN!_" Lulu exclaimed.

Arnie reeled back from the impact and fell flat on his bottom, his propeller beanie crash-landed into the ground behind him. Judy put her book under her arm, snatched Doug by the wrist and raced out the door with him. Porkchop took off, high-tailing it after them.

The three flew back out to the car and piled in. The wheels screeched, the engine roared, and the car flew at full horsepower down the country road, the wheat flowing in its wake.

They now rode much more quietly with Judy at the wheel, Doug riding shotgun and Porkchop buckled into the middle seat in the back. Doug and Porkchop had blank faces. Judy wore a stoic expression.

Doug turned to face Judy. "Hey Judy?" he asked.

"Yes Doug?" She replied, watching the road through her sunglasses.

"Think mom and dad would be mad at us if they found out we just hit a crazy kid over the head with a Shakespeare book?"

Judy leant back and held the wheel one-armed, raising her finger to the side of her lip ponderously. "I'd prefer it if you never spoke of this to anyone, Douggie."

"Oh okay… I sort of like the sound of pretending that whole thing didn't just happen too. Should we still go to that boarding house?"

"After that last_ grand_ performance? I'd suggest we find another place…"

"Do we know any other places?"

"We'll find one, Doug. I mean, the city can only be so big…"


End file.
